Financing deal paves way for new Goodwill store opening in Painesville Township

By
John Arthur Hutchison, The News-Herald

Friday, September 20, 2013

The Lake County Ohio Port and Economic Development Authority approved issuing $6 million in bonds to help finance two projects, including a new Goodwill store opening in Painesville Township.
Craig Chaffinch, chief financial officer for Goodwill Industries of Greater Cleveland and East Central Ohio, said the facility at 2175 Mentor Ave. near the border of Mentor was scheduled to have a grand opening Thursday.
The other store location is in Lexington Township in Stark County.
Chaffinch said the 18,000-square-foot facility in Lake County is a brand new building at a cost of about $3 million and is expected to employ between 20 and 30 people.
He said the store will provide job training skills and has a computer lab inside.
“Our mission is about job training and skill development to improve the quality of life,” Chaffinch said.
Mark Rantala, executive director for the authority, said issuing bonds to help the Stark County facility was done through a cooperative agreement with that county’s Port Authority.
“We have the capability to issue up to $10 million of these bank-qualified bonds each year,” Rantala said. “The Stark County Port Authority has the same ability and they had already allocated their $10 million for this year.
“So they reached out to us and asked if we had bonds we could still issue and we said yes.”
The Lake County authority will earn some revenue from issuing the bonds, but the overall goal is to help facility economic development.
“We support the project in Painesville Township, which is good for Lake County, but we also help Goodwill in Stark County,” Rantala said.
The $6 million agreement marks the fourth major bond financing deal for the authority.
Previous bond financing issues have totalled $22,625,000 and were for projects at Lake Erie College ($15.75 million) in 2008; Mary Rose Estates ($3.5 million) in 2011; and Simon Properties ($3.375 million) in 2012.